


Day One

by wilddragonflying



Series: Fallout Fic [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: day one out of the vault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilddragonflying/pseuds/wilddragonflying





	Day One

Kaili comes to with a gasp, falling forward only to barely catch herself against the freezing metal in front of her, breath fogging the glass.

The metal moves, and Kaili’s knees won’t support her, leaving her with no choice but to fall in an ungraceful heap of limbs on the metal floor of the Vault, coughing as she replaces the stale air in her lungs with the slightly-less-stale air of the Vault. Gradually the feeling comes back into her limbs, and she slowly pushes herself to her hands and knees, then to a kneeling position as she looks around.

When the memory of what happened the last time she woke up returns, Kaili scrambles to her feet, tripping over to the control for the cryostasis pod across from her. “ _No, no, no,_ ” she gasps, scrabbling for the release button - it finally relents, depressing and triggering the doors to open.

”Nate,  _no_ ,” she sobs, catching sight of the perfectly-preserved bullet hole slightly off-center of his forehead. Her knees fail again, and Kaili collapses, sobbing. What the hell is she supposed to do now, without Nate? He’d been there for her through - through  _everything_ , and now he was gone, murdered by the psychos who took their son.

It takes several long moments for Kaili to compose herself, but eventually she wipes her face clean and pushes herself to her feet, grim determination setting in.

She used to be the best in hostage retrieval. She may have been retired from the military for a year, but she and Nate had kept in practice at the range, far too aware of the looming nuclear threat.

Well, it looked like she’d just found her new mission.

* * *

”I - fucking -  _hate_  - bugs,” Kaili grunts, swinging the baton she’d taken from a skeleton like she’s aiming for a home run; the giant fucking cockroach that had been flying for her face explodes, and Kaili gags as bug guts splatter her face. “ _Eurgh!_ ” she shrieks, partly in frustration, partly from disgust as she wipes her face off. “Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh,  _ugh!_  Jesus Christ on a nuke, I hate bugs!”

Giving herself a shake, Kaili continues through the Vault, smashing a few more bugs into gooey paste before she gives a shout of victory when she spots the 10mm and ammo cartridges on the desk next to a terminal. Kicking the wheely chair with the skeleton away, she quickly checks the chamber, refilling it and tucking the extra ammo into one of the pouches on her belt. She scans the terminal, swearing under her breath as she reads the entries. “You bastards,” she growls. “These weren’t havens, they were fucking  _experiments._ ” Still muttering to herself, Kaili keys the command for the security door to unlock; as she makes her way through the last few hallways, plugging each roach with a single shot, the only thoughts running through her mind are “Find Shaun, kill the bastards who took him” and “Fucking hate bugs.”

One last bullet takes care of the roach hissing at her from atop the Pip Boy on the skeleton by the elevator control, and she shakes the radius and ulna bones out of the sleeve before slipping the device over her own wrist and securing it. “Thank God for technology,” she mutters, connecting the cable to power up the Pip Boy and unlock the elevator.

Once she’s on it, there’s a bit of a delay before the gears kick in, and Kaili frowns. Surely the radiation didn’t disrupt the gears themselves?

Kaili has to shield her eyes when the sunlight reaches her, and when she can finally see again, she gapes. “Holy - “

The landscape before her is not the Massachusetts she lived in. Everything is dead, dressed in drab greys and browns with the occasional splash of orange or yellow. She can see Sanctuary Hills below her through the bare trees, and already she can tell that most of the houses are deserted, a few totally caved in.

Kaili almost feels like a pit has opened beneath her, threatening to swallow her whole. This isn’t her world, the world she fought to protect for so long -

This is a new world, one she doesn’t know. This is a new life.

Squaring her shoulders, Kaili turns her focus to the path leading away from the Vault elevator.

”Day one.”


End file.
